Whoopi Goldberg double bill. In 'Sister Act', Deloris Van Cartier (Goldberg) is a lounge singer with aspirations to be a star, but instead becomes the star witness to a mob murder. She goes to the police, is put into the state witness protection scheme and sent to a nunnery run by a starchy Mother Superior (Maggie Smith). Whilst there Deloris tries to fit in, but finds that everything she does seems to annoy her fellow nuns - until she discovers the choir. In 'Sister Act 2 - Back in the Habit', Deloris is asked to resume the habit of a nun so that she can help raise funds for an ailing ghetto school. Deloris agrees to go undercover as the school's new music teacher.
In Sister Act, Whoopi Goldberg plays a Reno lounge singer who hides out as a nun when her villainous boyfriend (Harvey Keitel) goes gunning for her. Maggie Smith is the mother superior who has to cope with Whoopi's unorthodox behaviour, but the cute script turns the tables and shows the latter energising the stodgy convent with song and attitude. A real crowd-pleaser and a perfect vehicle for Goldberg, this is a happy experience all around. --Tom Keogh,

Whoopi Goldberg returns in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, a gratuitous, poorly written sequel that contrives a reason to get her character back into Maggie Smith's convent. The "socially conscious" plot finds Goldberg being asked to relate to a bunch of street kids and pull them together into a choir. Since a bad guy is needed, the script grabs that old chestnut about a rich guy (James Coburn) preparing to close down the convent's school, and runs with it. The film is slow and unconvincing from start to finish, although co-stars Mary Wickes and Kathy Najimy get some good laughs, and the music is pretty spirited. --Tom Keogh,